I am lying in an empty bathtub blanketed in the shadow of a man standing at the opposite end in top coat and tails. His pleated gabardine slacks not so much frayed but hacked at the knees, ragged, like he has wandered from the perimeter a bomb blast. Bagdad Route Irish chic. But a glance to his wild west handlebar, pomaded into precise fronds and the Kerouac quote just visible in the raised topography of his left foot tell me he’s too hipster to have attempted a tête-à-tête in the Persian sandbox. His expression is both intense and unreadable; therefore, unsettling. And he is staring at me with such force, I feel myself instinctively flatten my spine against the rigid L-curve of the tub, in a bid to put an extra centimeter between us. I feel the chill of steel enamel through the thin membrane of my dress. It travels like an up-flowing river to the top of my neck. I shiver, over-sized earrings chiming like timpani’s against copper faucets that bookend my head. His body triggered into motion by the sound, he gracefully collapses to a low crouch, heels flat in the style of a Korean adjoshi. And I wonder if I was wrong about him. Perhaps he is well travelled. Seen things. Things other than the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury or the Quinoa section at Whole Foods. He’s one of those people; those people that play with the fabric of your reality because they don’t obey the role you assigned them. “Ready?” he asks.

The limits of speaking one language. This blog post is - unwittingly to her - inspired by my younger sister, Lucy, who is currently learning German. Over the last few weeks, she has been sharing some words/concepts which don't exist in English or at least, not in exactly the same way.

e.g. Drachenfutter - Literal translation is 'dragon food' but it is a peacekeeping gift a husband must bring his wife after pissing her off.

For me, language is the doorway to culture and one of the ways this is best demonstrated is by the discovery of words which don't exist in other languages.

I stumbled across the following word about three years ago and immediately fell in love with it.

Mamihlapinatapai.

It is from the Yaghan language from Tierra del Fuego (Chile - near the Southern most tip of South America).

It's often described as the most succinct word in the history of language and one of the most difficult to translate.

It's meaning? As defined, by the sometimes academically dubious but extremely useful site, Wikipedia, mamihlapinatapai refers to "a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will offer something that they both desire but are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves."

Wow.

If you have a fascination with words and language as I do, I'll leave you with a few other unusual words but that actually exist in English:

Entomophilous - Adaptation for pollination by insects.Apodysophilia - A feverish desire to undress. Boustrophedon - Alternating writing left to right, then right to left....for more visit here.